Israeli Students Win First Place for Robotic Wedding

9th-grade Israeli students won first place in 2013 international robotics competition in Holland for re-enactment of a Jewish wedding.

By Rina Tzvi

First Publish: 7/7/2013, 1:15 PM

Israeli students with PM Netanyahu

Flash 90

A team of 9th-graders from a high school in Rehovot, Israel, won the RoboCup 2013 international robotics competition in Holland with their robotic re-enactment of a Jewish wedding, the JNS news agency reported.

The competition, which returned to Israel last week with the first place trophy, included contestants from more than 40 countries, including the U.S., Australia, Slovenia and Turkey.

The students had been tasked with creating robots to act out one of three scenarios: A soccer match between a pair of two-person robot teams, a choreographed dance, or a rescue robot that can identify victims at disaster scenes and navigate to safety, according to JNS.

“We [the students and I] built bride and groom robots that, using sensors, know to enter the wedding canopy and start dancing. The robots we built are considered tall, at 1.3 meters [4 feet], and that also impressed people in the competition,” said Sarit Zaltsman, the teacher in charge of the robotics division at the high school, according to Israel Hayom.

“Our robots were well constructed, I know this will help me in the future,” student and team member Daniel Golub said.